


visions of good times

by leiascully



Series: New York AU [6]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-26
Updated: 2009-09-26
Packaged: 2017-10-03 03:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She will let Jimmy Buffett be the soundtrack to her day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	visions of good times

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Tthe first Bill/Laura installment of the NY AU, with boat drinks. Title is from Jimmy Buffett's "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes". For [**dashakay**](http://dashakay.livejournal.com).  
> Disclaimer: _Battlestar Galactica_ and all related characters belong to Ronald Moore, NBC Universal, Sci-Fi Channel, and Sky One. No infringement is intended and no profit is made from this.

It is nine in the morning when Laura goes into her office and closes the door. She leans against it, breathing a little fast. If she considers it, she always knew Superintendent Adar was a supercilious asshole with whom she shouldn't be involved, but she never imagined it might cost her her job. Thank God he has to go through the board - maybe they'll see that there was no other way to handle the strike. Perhaps her tactics were edgy, but they worked. She has not made this personal.

She sits down, but can't concentrate. Laura has, she thinks, had the last long day she needs in a series of long days, and the bad end to a bad affair on top of that, and what she needs more than anything (besides a good hard kiss from someone who means it) is boat drinks. She will let Jimmy Buffett be the soundtrack to her day instead of "Pomp and Circumstance". She needs boat drinks, beach-themed booze with tiny umbrellas and the luxurious taste of coconut rum. She looks up bars on the piers until she finds one with a great view and the promise of a tiki bar and leaves work at noon.

"I'll be unreachable for the rest of the day," she tells her astonished assistant, not even pausing at the door.

She sits at the bar, because she can, and because despite everything, she can't justify taking up a whole table. The bartender is young and has spiky hair; he reminds her vaguely of one of her students.

"What can I get you?" he asks smoothly, sliding a coaster in front of her.

"Anything strong that comes with a little umbrella," she tells him. "I'm in the mood to escape."

He winks at her. "It's always five o'clock somewhere. I'll take care of you."

"Thank you." Outrageous, she thinks, that someone half her age is flirting with her, and at the same time, encouraging. She sips at her drink - it is wickedly strong and sinfully sweet, with just enough citrus to take the edge off. She sits and takes tiny mouthfuls of her drink, just enough to make her tongue tingle. The bartender winks again as he sidles down to mix cocktails for a couple of tourists. Laura watches the bar fill up around her. The bartender sets a second drink on the bar in front of her just as she drains the first.

"Thank you," she says, a little more throatily than she intended to, and he gives her a brilliant smile. She takes a deep breath and notices that yes, her sense of the horizon isn't quite as steady as usual. Good. She came here to lose that internal gyroscope that's kept her on the straight and narrow all her life.

Laura takes bigger sips of this drink, and when she's done, the bartender sets a third in front of her along with a plate of nibbles and grins broadly. The bar is nearly full now, and he is off to the other end uncapping bottles of beer before she can say anything. "Incorrigible," she mutters to herself.

"Mind if we sit here?" asks a voice behind her, and she turns to see a craggy man in a Naval rear admiral's uniform. The man he's with doesn't bother to ask, just throws himself onto the stool next to her and shouts for a double whiskey, no ice.

"Not at all," she says. Sailors: it is like a cliché, utterly delicious. She's on a pier, drinking rum in the middle of the day, and now there are sailors. Perhaps later they'll all burst into song during a night on the town.

"Thank you," the admiral rumbles. "Saul, where are your manners?"

"Yeah, yeah, thanks," says the other man, a captain. He squints at her and the sun gleaming off his bald head makes her want to giggle. "You picked a winner, Bill. Frilly drinks with little umbrellas. That'll bring the bartender around." He gives her a onceover, just a short one. "Pretty, too. Good service for us today."

"You'll have to excuse him," Bill the admiral says. "Cooped up on a ship for months at a time, he forgets how to behave in civilized company."

She likes them already. She picks up her drink and tips it idly. "I'm not exactly civilized company today in any case."

"Drinkin' to forget," Saul says in his broad raspy voice. "You really can pick 'em." He barks at the bartender, "Doubles! No ice! On the double!"

"Saul, leave the kid alone," Bill reprimands him, but Saul just waggles his eyebrows. The bartender comes down the bar and measures out two doubles with flair, pushing them across the bar.

"Don't worry, gentlemen, I'll take care of you," the bartender says. "Just a little busy in here this afternoon and my colleague hasn't arrived."

"He's a good boy," Laura says impulsively. The bartender winks at her.

"See there," Bill says, "Saul, that's how you gotta work 'em. Catch more flies with honey. You wouldn't have had those problems with the recruits if you'd buttered them up like that."

"The hell it matters now," Saul groused, knocking back half his drink. "I didn't sign on to be a nursemaid anyway. Or sail a desk."

"I'll keep them coming," the bartender says.

"Thank you," Laura tells him.

"Velvet glove, Saul," Bill says.

Saul just grunts.

"I apologize," Bill says, "I'm Bill Adama. This wreck of a man is Saul Tigh, my XO."

"On your ship?" Laura hazards.

"Not anymore," Saul says, leaning hard over the bar. "Goddamn home office has us decommissioned. Both of us too goddamn old to start over. I signed up to crew a ship, not a desk. You'd think forty years of service would mean something, but no, ship's decommissioned and so are we."

"Heavens," Laura says. The whole bar is as shiny as Tigh's bald head. Hell, after the morning she had and the amount of rum she's ingested, the whole world is shiny. "So what happens when the sailor can't return to the sea?"

"We'll be stationed in the city from now on," Bill says. "Ship goes into dry dock. They've offered us jobs in the home office. Good jobs," he adds as an afterthought.

"Haven't been on land for so long don't even know how to walk," Saul says.

"Well, I'm sure the whiskey will help that," Laura says. Bill shoots her a look and then cracks a smile that makes his eyes light up in a strangely appealing way. She holds out her hand.

"I'm Laura Roslin," she says. He has a firm handshake, not that pointlessly macho crushing pressure she's run into so often. "I work for the Department of Education."

"Well that explains everything," Saul rasps. "Why don't you call your pet there back over here? He's no good to us if he's only polishin' apples when he ought to be filling glasses."

"Please excuse him," Bill says. "The salt air corrodes his brain."

"It's a refreshing change," she says. "Compared to the extremely cordial backstabbing assholes I usually work with."

"Bureaucrats," Saul snorts. "All the same."

"Not all of us," Laura says.

"Beggin' the lady's pardon," Saul says with exaggerated concern, and then shouts down the bar, "More scotch and leave the bottle!"

"It's been a difficult month," Bill says in apology, and she nods.

"On top of it all, I gotta find an apartment," Saul says. "Can't have Ellen in military housing."

"No, she'd make the rounds," Bill says, and they both laugh.

"Ah, it's true," Saul says, with only a trace of bitterness. "I'd deck you if there weren't a lady present." Laura smiles. Their conversation washes over and around her, rough and comforting somehow. Without pretense, perhaps. They are men she doubts she would get along with, if she were working with them, but here, in this bar with the light reflecting off the water and her body humming with rum, she is very fond of them.

"No, you wouldn't," Bill says, draining his glass. The bartender reappears, breathing an apology, and leaves the bottle and a new plate.

"No, I wouldn't," Saul agrees, filling his glass. "But only you."

"Not looking forward to bachelor's quarters myself," Bill says. "Not used to all of this anymore. On board, it was simple. You want to eat, you go to the mess. You want to sleep, you go to your rack."

"Well, if you ever need someone to show you around town," she says, "I'm about to be fired, so I'm certain I'll have plenty of time."

"Thank you," Bill says

"Called the boys?" Saul asks.

"No," Bill says. "Figured I'd get good and sloshed first, let 'em take care of their old man. Haven't told 'em I'm home for good. Called Ellen?"

"Ha," Saul says. "Left a message. Can't count on her to answer her phone."

Bill grunts. "We're a mess."

"I had an affair with my boss," Laura says suddenly. Her head feels light, floaty, like a hot air balloon in the morning sun.

Saul hisses through his teeth and shakes his head.

"Damn shame," Bill says.

"I am _good_ at my job," Laura says with spirit. "I did what I was supposed to do, and what's worse, I did it with _style_. And now, because of a stupid indiscretion, I may lose it. No, I'm sorry, I'm almost certain to lose it, because he really is an asshole, and so, gentleman, as you see, we are all in the same boat, as it were, or out of it."

"I'll drink to that," Saul says, and he and Bill both raise their glasses.

"Damn shame," Bill says again, and gives her a look like he means it. A shock of recognition floods through her: she feels like she has known him before, as if they have shared a common purpose. She hears music, a dance reel, and smells sweet smoke, and feels the room warp around her. The sun is going down: the angle of the light makes it look as if the table is glowing and she feels like she's been here before, like something is finally going to go right for a while.

She realizes that she has to pee very, very badly. She presses her hands against the bar and stands up and nearly swoons right into Bill's lap.

"Well now," Saul says, but Bill glares at him and steadies her. He stands up and offers her his arm; she takes it with a little thrill of delight. He bows slightly without toppling her.

"Need an escort, ma'am?"

"Take me to the head," she says, pleased that she's remembered at least one bit of naval terminology. "Please."

"It would be my pleasure," he says, and chaperons her to the door of the ladies' room. He is still waiting there when she gets out.

"I believe I should go home," she says, "before I create any more trouble for myself."

"I had the desk call a cab," he says, looking pleased with himself.

"Thank you," she says. She reaches into her purse for her wallet and he shakes his head.

"I'll walk you out," he says, and offers her his arm again.

"I feel as if I've met you before," she says impulsively.

"I know what you mean," he says. His voice is a low rumble. It sounds so familiar that she sighs. "I'll wait with you."

The cab is at the curb. She is almost disappointed to see it. He opens the door for her. She looks at the upholstery and then at Bill and reaches into her purse again.

"We'll handle your tab," he says gruffly.

"I wanted to give you my card," she says, scribbling her cell number on the back. "Just in case."

"Thank you," he says, and he sounds like he means it. He takes her card and holds it between two fingers, gazing at it.

"Don't forget," she says. "Look me up. Really. You need someone to show you around town."

"I'll have nothing but time too," he says, tucking her card into his pocket. "It was good to meet you, Laura."

"Admiral," she says, and he hands her into the cab and shuts the door.


End file.
